


The Sleeping Princess of Shikon Mountain

by NeutronStarChild



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Canon Era, F/M, Happy Ending, The Glass Mountain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28431435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeutronStarChild/pseuds/NeutronStarChild
Summary: The legends say that atop Shikon Mountain, there is a persimmon tree full of golden fruit. And any traveler who eats of this fruit will see a pagoda appear before them, where it is said a princess sleeps, protecting a great jewel that is able to grant wishes. But the sleeping maiden holds a secret: and only the one who understands the true meaning of their quest has a chance to save her and become a prince.Based onThe Glass MountainBirthday fic for the incredibleAlannada!Amazing commissioned art bykirrtash!
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome/InuYasha
Comments: 98
Kudos: 99
Collections: Divergent Adventures of Inuyasha





	1. The Mountain of the Slumbering Maiden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alannada](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alannada/gifts).



> Betaed by [Fawn_Eyed_Girl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fawn_Eyed_Girl) and [Ruddcatha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruddcatha)

[ ](https://kirrtash.tumblr.com/post/638946128072720384/i-was-commissioned-some-time-ago-from)

Artwork Commission by [kirrtash](https://kirrtash.tumblr.com)

* * *

“Do not go to Shikon Mountain,” the fables warned. “Because dark things lurk in its shadow, and those who venture forth will meet their doom.”

Yet even though all were warned away, whispers lingered of the treasures amongst the mountain’s stone faces. Of a tree that was bursting with golden persimmons, so sweet and supple they would sate the hunger of a starving man for a fortnight. But no legend was more whispered about than that of the slumbering princess and her precious jewel.

It was said that a pagoda sat atop its highest peak, and inside slept the most beautiful maiden in all the many ages of Japan. If a traveler made it to the golden persimmon tree and ate of its fruit, he would be given the choice: to leave the mountain, rich with a fruit so fine it would fetch a golden ingot for each and every one, or to go forward into the pagoda, and attempt to free the slumbering maid. It was whispered that the one who succeeded would be granted a wish upon the jewel in her hands. To turn from the challenge would bring the traveler dishonor, but he would keep his life. To venture forward and keep his honor, he was destined to die; for only the one who understood the  _ true quest _ would have any chance at freeing her.

Because the jewel  _ itself _ was the reason the maiden was sleeping, a detail lost to the annals of time and the whispers of men.

Long before the villages lay in its foothills, before the great lords claimed their land and signed their treaties, and brought peace back to that part of Japan, there was a great battle. Bloodthirsty demons and humans ravaged the land, deadset upon destroying any semblance of joy in their wake. They burned and raped and pillaged, leaving the taint of hopelessness on everything that they touched. But it was not until their advance brought them to the foot of the great mountain that one finally stood her ground: a great princess and priestess.

She cast the demons into hell, and purified the evil out of the hearts of men. Her soul was so great that the vast armies crumbled at her feet, the dark demons now ash and the men quaking on their hands and feet, begging for her forgiveness. And only then was the  _ real _ villain revealed. It was not a great demon or human lord, looming over his armies with brutal precision. It was not even a poison-tongued youth, whispering ideas of grandeur into greedy hearts. It was no more than a jewel, easy to overlook save for those touched by its promises. Of great power, great strength, great riches, and dominion over the inhabitants of Japan. It whispered its desires on the wind, and let itself be picked up and fought over by anyone greedy enough to seek its counsel. So, the great princess held the jewel in her hand, and she bound herself to it, until such a day would come that someone could free her, and rid the world of the jewel’s evil.

And so the great Kagome Higurashi used the last of her power to exile herself and the jewel to the top of Shikon Mountain, where she cursed them both to sleep. She left a persimmon tree to grow in the only patch of land she was able to purify, in hopes that its fruit would urge her savior on, knowing that only one with purity in their heart could reach the tree and eat its fruit. And so she closed her eyes and slept, the jewel encased between her slender fingers, waiting until the one who could free her came along and broke the curse.

But the jewel was ever cunning, and even as it slept, still it whispered in the wind, crying to those who sought its power to come and seek it, and wish for its return to the world. Many evil hearts answered the jewel’s call for liberation, fighting and dying ceaselessly for supremacy, but none could break Kagome’s barrier. Finally, only one remained at the top of the mountain, lying in wait for the individual who might give it the chance to gain the power it had always desired. A minion of the sleeping evil being guarded by a priestess’s curse.

And so it was that in the foothills of Shikon Mountain, Kagome’s stand was long forgotten, replaced with desire to eat from the tree that bore the golden fruit, free and marry the beautiful maid, and be granted a wish by the jewel for their efforts. Soldiers and merchants and lordlings ventured forth, armed with weapons and food and armor. Sometimes they came with servants to carry their fineries, but once one set their first foot upon the mountain, they were doomed never to return. Over the years, fewer and fewer attempted the quest, until only the boldest and most foolhardy still tried their luck, only to disappear like all the rest. It was unknown how far they ventured, whether the dark shadows consumed them from the foothills, or if they had eaten the fruit and entered the pagoda, only to make the wrong choice.

So Kagome slept and waited, and so too did the jewel, for the one destined to break their curse. Kagome’s power kept the persimmons safe and the pagoda hidden to any unable to eat the fruit, and the jewel’s kept its minion close, stoked its minion’s greed, and whispered to them of the great and powerful being it would become if it succeeded in setting its master free.

But the time was nigh that their wish would be granted. The one capable of breaking their stalemate would appear in the village at the foot of Shikon Mountain, and quest up its peaks, set to battle the shadows that lurked on the path, set to eat the golden fruit and free the sleeping maid: a man who was destined to become a prince.

This is  _ that _ story: the story of a jewel, a spider, a princess, and a hero.


	2. The Wolf Lordling’s Quest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Character death.

As Shikon Mountain slept, bright sapphire eyes stared up toward its tallest peak, and white fangs gleamed in the first rays of the rising sun.

“I have found my quest,” the lordling Kōga declared.

It had taken the young wolf demon the better part of his coming of age year to find the perfect trial. His tribe was searching for their new heir, and he had put himself forward for consideration.

“Too young,” they had claimed.  
“Foolish and brash and naive,” they had taunted.

But Kōga refused to listen to them. He _was_ to be the ascendant prince! And if the only way to prove his worth was to complete the “impossible” quest, then so he would! Kōga was not like the rest of those soldiers and lords who tried. Kōga was more cunning than the slyest kitsune telling its most practiced riddle, and Kōga was swifter than the horse who galloped on hellfire. He was above all of them, and his skill would be enough to climb to the top of Shikon Mountain and free the sleeping princess, wishing on the jewel for a great bounty for his lands.

It was a good wish, he thought. Selfless, and in the service of his tribe and people. With the princess in his arms, he would win the throne with a single quest. It would minimize bloodshed too, removing a need for the clashes between the clans. It would prove him worthy.

As he peered up toward his quarry, Kōga took a moment to ponder. None had freed the princess, but also none had turned back. It gave the lordling wolf an idea: one he would enact at the break of dawn the following day. But first, his journey had been long and he’d traveled light, so he would equip for his quest in the foothill village, and hope to find out the rest of the legend of the sleeping princess of Shikon Mountain.

Kōga ventured to the town’s smithy and procured their finest sword. It was a well-crafted katana, made of metal folded dozens of times, leaving the edge sharp but the blade flexible. Wolf demons did not have a need for swords: their claws and teeth and yōki served them well. But that didn’t mean that he did not want to be prepared for whatever it was that protected the princess and the jewel on the mountain. And the tribe back home did not need to know about the sword…

As the sun set and night painted the land, Kōga sat in the town inn, enjoying a bottle of sake and a bowl of rice and fish. His ears pricked at the villagers discussing his presence.

“Look at his sword,” they said. “He must be on his way up the mountain.”

But Kōga did not engage. He simply listened to their whispers, of the monsters they believed lurked, growing scarier and darker the farther up the peak one traveled. He tuned into the merchants who lamented the handsome young wolf disappearing like all the rest.

“Sir. Would you care for a token for your journey?” A small girl with unkempt raven hair that flared out at the ends offered, holding a small grass doll she had made and tied with sturdy red string. “I only ask for a bowl of rice.”

Kōga considered the small girl for a moment, holding out her token to trade, but he turned away. He was not cruel, but he knew that where there was one such orphan, more were to follow, and soon he would be laden with nick nacks for “luck” rather than weapons and supplies.

“I am sorry, young one. But I have no need for your charm,” Kōga said, sharing a sad smile with the girl. Perhaps on another day, when he was King, he would trade the bowl of rice for her bauble.

The child left with a sad nod, off, Kōga thought, to try her luck with others in the inn. Most of the information about Shikon mountains (and the beasts that lurked there) seemed stale or fictitious, and he wanted an early start in the morning, so Kōga headed for his room, and turned in for the night.

* * *

Before the first rays of morning sun painted the land, the lordling wolf strapped his new sword to his belt and his supplies to his back, and he set off for Shikon Mountain.

The road that led to its mouth thinned into a path, then thinned once again into nothing more than a game trail, but Kōga carried on: assured of his quest, assured of his rite, and assured of his skill. The princess would be his, and his land would fill with all the riches and bounties he could gain with a single wish.

But this assurance was the only thing he now had propelling his steps forward, for every inch closer he got to the forest at the foot of the mountain, the louder his mind screamed at him to flee. But Kōga had learned long ago how to tell the difference between fear and instinct, and the foreboding feeling currently filling him was from _fear_ , rather than from instinct. Indeed, Shikon Mountain would not be a cursed mountain were walking into it so simple. It was enough to spur him onward.

Soon he crossed the tree line into the oppressive forest, and at this, Kōga paused. Even in the gloomiest of forests, a cacophony would surround him, whether it was the song of birds, the crunching of the ground as it was disturbed by some passing creature, the trickling of water from a spring or stream that sustained the foliage, or the soft rustling of leaves as a breeze passed through the treetops. But here, the air was heavy with its silence. All Kōga could hear was the low hum of some unknown insect above him, a humming he noticed, that he could not locate. It was all around him, and yet nowhere.

“Uphill,” Kōga whispered to himself. “That is all I must remember: keep moving uphill.”

But as he walked, the humming became a buzz and the trees grew thicker and more oppressive. It felt like the thicket pressed on him, but still he kept on trudging, up and up and up. Where were the birds or the deer? Where even was the trickle of water he was so certain he could hear? Or even just… the rustling of leaves? It quickened his steps upward, just to try to escape the smothering silence and the angry buzz.

Then finally, he saw it. Through the thick was a faint glimmer of light. And for the first time since entering that place, a _breeze_ . It felt crisp and welcoming on his face: a _clearing_. He wanted to run to it, so he could feel the sun shine on his face and the air tickle his skin. Indeed, he had taken off at a jog before… he stopped.

The feeling that he had was unlike the lapping fear that had gnawed at him as he walked through these woods. It stabbed at his gut, sending tremulous alarm bells surging through his body. It was his instincts screaming of an unknown and terrible danger ahead.

And when it was his instincts sending up the flare, Kōga listened.

Just before he entered the clearing, Kōga turned tail—down, down, down the mountain he ran, until he had made it out past the tree line, onto the game trail that led back to the village. He heeded the alarms that his instincts had awakened, but he knew that tomorrow, he would have to be prepared. Tomorrow, he could face the forest and the buzzing. Tomorrow perhaps, he could walk into that clearing ready for whatever trap laid there in wait. But tonight, Kōga resolved to camp at the bottom of the hill, in one of the trees that was outside of the mountain’s influence, and think through what he saw and felt and experienced in the forest. But tonight— tonight—he would sleep in that tree and he would try again tomorrow.

In the clearing, the wind sorceress sighed. It had been _so long_ since one had come so close, and she had wanted to play. But this one was smart. This one could feel the trap that was laid, and he ran before she could spring.

“Stand down, Kagura.” The voice in the sky buzzed in her ear. The voice of the spider who kept her there. “Tomorrow, I will deal with him.”

“How do you know he will be back?” Kagura asked the spider.

“Because I know,” was all the answer that Kagura got.

* * *

On the second morning, before the first rays of sunlight kissed the land, Kōga climbed out of the tree he had used for his uneasy slumber. But his dreams turned to spiders and to persimmons and to the humming of the forest that did not seem to abate.

The quest he had chosen was a kingly quest indeed, and though he was quite certain he would succeed, he could never get the hairs on the back of his neck to relax. And now that his instincts had triggered, they nagged at him. But Kōga had made his choice, and he would follow through. The sleeping princess awaited his rescue, and his people awaited his wish.

“I _will_ save you,” Kōga said, and he trudged back toward the mountain.

He knew today, unlike yesterday, even if his instincts scraped at his insides, Kōga would continue on.

So he trudged back into the forest, his jaw set, his mind resolved. Today he would march into that clearing and find the threat, and he would defeat it.

The buzz of the forest felt more subdued on his second trip, as if they had acclimated to his presence. Kōga should have marked that change, because it was never good for dark unknown things to get used to you. But instead, Kōga enjoyed the lessened noise as he climbed, ignoring the rancid air and the grasping trees. He kept to his trail from the previous day, and when he saw the sliver of light, he knew he had found his way back to the clearing.

Before he walked through the last of the trees, Kōga paused. His instincts were not screaming like yesterday. And he realized that the breeze that had beckoned him in the day before was all but gone. Kōga looked around. Why had he run all the way down the mountain for _this_? In the clearing was a deep green grass, that, even as the sun touched it, still seemed enshrouded in shadow. But at least he could feel the sun warm his skin, and at least he could breathe air that did not sit heavily in his lungs.

Then he heard it, on the far edge: a faint rustling. It was timid, but clear. And whatever it was, it did not light Kōga’s instincts afire. So Kōga followed it, tentatively.

Whatever it was, it was fast, and he could follow it, both through its rustles, and by the silence it caused in the buzzing trees above it, as if all were observing whatever swift-footed beast was making its way through the forest, prey that was being pursued by a predator. But it was climbing upward, its destination unknown but in the same direction as Kōga’s. And… it had clearly mapped the easiest path through the brambles and the thickets.

Suddenly the trees thinned, and Kōga came face to face with the stark rock: spires of granite jutting out to pierce the sky above them, their feet setting an elaborate stone maze.

“Almost there,” Kōga said to himself, his fangs poking out of his smiling lips. “I will see you, my princess, and I will free both you and my wish.”

Then he heard it once more. It was no longer a rustle, but instead the scampering of feet. Whatever it was that he was pursuing had fled into the rocks! Perhaps, as with the woods, his prey would show him the easiest way through the rocky labyrinth, and he would be able to get to the sleeping maiden all the faster.

When his instincts did not pick up their wailing, Kōga advanced, following the scampering feet that were always just ahead of him. When they turned left, Kōga did as well. When they slowed their pace, so, too, did Kōga. His prey _did_ know the fastest way through the maze, feeling out shortcuts through the stones and narrow pathways amongst the great crevasses of the granite spires.

Kōga wondered: was this the maiden’s spirit encouraging him onward?  
Was she calling out for him to free her? Her _prince_?

“I am coming princess!” Kōga declared into the wind, picking up his speed at the same time his guide picked up their speed.

_He knew he would make it!_   
_He knew he would get there!_   
_He knew he would not fail in his quest!_

A snap below his feet was the only warning he had that he had failed. Because before he could understand what had happened, he was plummeting down, down, down, into an endless dark ravine of Shikon Mountain, a plummet, even Kōga, the great lordling wolf, destined to be a prince of his clan, could not survive.

The spider grinned. Its weakened web bridge had done just the trick, breaking so swiftly that not even one as fast as Kōga could undo their fate. The wolf had gotten closer than the rest. But spiders were cunning. And _no one_ would claim his prize.


	3. The Hanyō Against the Wind

It had not taken long for the rumors of Shikon Mountain’s most recent victim to trickle through the foothill villages. The great lordling wolf Kōga sought his fortune upon its rocky slopes and found instead his demise. Most villagers thought that the folly of the great wolf would deter others from undertaking such a fool’s errand. But there was one that could not be deterred.

He crept into town silently, finding residence in the thick foliage of a tree on the edge of a forest. No one needed to know that he was planning to take on the quest and try to save the sleeping maiden; at least, not until it was already underway. Because, to everyone except for his own mother, Inuyasha _was_ nobody. He was a child of two worlds: human and demon, and neither of those worlds had any desire to accept one such as he.

“If your father had lived, he would have loved you with every fiber of his being,” his mother often reassured him. “As much as _I love you,_ my precious son.”

But Inuyasha’s mother had died ten years ago, leaving him alone in a world cruel enough to want to eradicate his abominable existence. So he wandered. And he disguised his silver hair with black soot and pressed his triangular dog ears under scarves. In the direst of circumstances, Inuyasha would chip off the sharp edges to his fangs with a rock, lamenting the pain and the fact that they would grow back the very next day, but in the human world, it made do. Unfortunately, his disguise was always foiled the moment a yōkai revealed themselves, and he was forced to run, again and again, away from the fleeting safety he could scrounge up for himself. It was a half-existence, in much the same way that he was a half-demon. Never quite in the world, but never granted his wish to escape it.

Perhaps that was why, finally, Inuyasha had come to the foothill village of Musashi, sitting directly below Shikon Mountain, the mountain that housed an impossible quest and a sleeping princess. Because, he thought, if he could _do_ the impossible, then maybe, just _maybe_ , the world would finally find a place for him. Because that was what Inuyasha wanted: a place that he could belong.

The whispers of the sleeping princess and wishing jewel had been swept like wind across the whole of Japan, and Inuyasha had known from the moment the first of those rumors crossed his downy ears that he would undertake the quest. Not because he thought himself worthy, but because it was one of the only ways he could foresee escaping his half-life, whether that was from his failure or his success. Because, if Inuyasha died upon that mountain, perhaps his name would be talked about as the hanyō _who took on the impossible quest_ , not as the _half-breed abomination_.

And, who could know? The sleeping princess upon that mountain might be destined to fall in love with her rescuer—with _him_ —if he succeeded. His mother used to read to him each night of brave demon lords and helpless ladies, of wars and peace and grand stories of love. And in every story where a brave knight rescued the princess, they fell in love and were married. It could give a hanyō a chance to find love, and even as Inuyasha tried to pretend that he was not interested in love, he _was_. _Desperately._

But _what_ he was prevented him from ever finding someone to get to know _who_ he was.  
So he would climb Shikon Mountain and free the princess, and hope that maybe, just maybe, he too could have his happy ending.

“I heard he fled the mountain before it ultimately claimed him…” A man’s voice nearly shook Inuyasha free of his hiding place. “Pity. I thought the wolf would finally be the one.” Inuyasha tuned into the conversation, his golden eyes trained upon the shadowy figures walking down the path. “Apparently Nanushi saw the whole thing… guess he’s over at the Inn now telling people about it!”

Inuyasha considered the man’s words. He had only the claws on his hands, the blood that flowed through his veins, the yōki his daiyōkai father had bestowed upon him, and the heart of his loving mother who never let him give up.

Maybe it was a good idea to follow the men to the inn and listen to the tales of the wolf’s failed quest. As long as he was not found out too early, he could gather information that might help his bid. Inuyasha jangled the two coins he had in his pocket: enough, he knew, for a bowl of rice and a pot of tea. Enough, he knew, that they would not throw him out. And the talk of the lordling Kōga indicated that this village was tolerant of a yōkai presence. It was enough for Inuyasha to at least give it a try. The worst they would do is run him out of town, and all that would come from that is he would start his trek up the mountain the night before he’d planned.

Overall, listening to the villagers at the inn seemed worth the risk. Inuyasha sighed, and threw the scarf over his ears. His silver hair and golden eyes demarcated his yōkai heritage, but at least without the ears showing he would not immediately be given away as a hanyō.

The inn was not too far from the path, and even with his ears pressed uncomfortably into his head, Inuyasha could hear the raucous voices of its patrons enjoying an evening drink, and sharing an evening tale. As the murmurs grew to conversations, Inuyasha listened for the words.

“...Ran down… then went up the next morning…”  
“I thought a wolf daiyōkai finally would succeed…”  
“...Will _never_ free the great priestess!..”

 _Priestess_? Had he heard that properly? The rumors that spread like estuaries to the villages was of a sleeping _princess_ , with naught about a priestess. The thought of it—his succeeding—freeing a _priestess_ brought shivers to his spine. Where a _princess_ might accept and even grow to love the hanyō who rescued her, what of a _priestess_? And why would a _priestess_ find herself atop a mountain in a perpetual slumber?

Inuyasha quickened his pace into the inn. He needed to know more, to know everything. It would not deter him from his quest, but perhaps it made the grander prize the jewel, which would grant him a single wish.

No patron inside the inn so much as glanced in Inuyasha’s direction as he peeled away the screen and crept inside. All were still wrapped up in the failed quest of the lordling wolf to notice an outsider, a yōkai, in their midst. Inuyasha ordered a pot of tea and a bowl of rice, careful to keep his head down. He was there to listen, and to fade into the background.

“They say it is a great bear that guards the jewel…”  
“No! It’s a spider! That can fly on the wind!”  
“...The forest is a labyrinth that none can escape from…”  
“Is the persimmon tree even real?”  
“...I saw a golden glint at sunset this one time! It was the tree!..”

Inuyasha was so caught up in listening to the murmurs and half-truths of the village that he did not see the small ragamuffin girl with wide brown eyes and wild hair until she’d tugged on his shirt, nearly startling him off the stool on which he sat.

“Excuse me, sir? You are not from around here and I wonder if you come to seek your fortune on the mountain?” The girl’s voice was quiet, for his ears only. “Would you care for a token for your journey?” She held out a grass-woven doll decorated with red string. “I only ask for a bowl of rice.”

Inuyasha looked down at her eyes, at her unkempt appearance, then at the bowl of rice he’d purchased with his last coin. But as she gazed at him with her soft chocolate eyes, it was as if he was looking in a mirror. It was not so long ago that he would have been as hungry, as dirty, as desperate for a little to eat. And he knew, hungry as he was, he could not refuse this girl or her token. Inuyasha leaned down, taking the steaming bowl of rice that was to be his meal, and handed it to the child.

“Here,” he said. “You are hungrier than I.” And upon seeing the girl's face light in a smile, he took the delicate doll from her hand. “And this is quite a bargain!”

The little girl giggled, and took the rice with a bow. Then, just before she turned to leave, she said, “Thank you, kind sir, and please remember, when you are atop the mountain, that nothing is without a price.”

As the girl disappeared into the rabble, Inuyasha sipped his tea and listened. Yes, the princess atop the mountain was also a priestess. And the mountain always felt queer and unnatural, and when one came too close, sounds of buzzing could be heard at the forest’s edge. It was information enough that Inuyasha was grateful for his visit. And even the bargain he struck with the orphaned child felt a worthy errand. But with no more money, it was time for him to leave and find a safe (and hopefully comfortable) place to sleep—perhaps the thicket he’d originally scouted. As he left the inn under the starlit night, his eyes fixed upon the small doll he’d just traded for a bowl of rice. For some reason, the girl’s words pressed into his mind and refused to flee: _nothing is without a price_.

* * *

When morning broke, Inuyasha lunged from his hiding spot, running as fast as he could toward the forest. It was late enough that the early rays were rousing the village, and as long as he kept his pace, he was sure to be _seen_ but not expected to _engage_ with any curious onlookers who came upon him.

He had let his ears free of the scarf that morning. He wanted all who looked upon him to understand what he was: a hanyō set to take on the mountain. Possibly the first hanyō to try such a task. If he should succeed, he would prove to them all the worthiness of one from both the human and yōkai world. And if he should fail, then he would no longer have to live carrying such a burden upon his shoulders.

As he launched himself over the river, he heard the gasps and screams of three women doing their morning chores. Inuyasha stared into the closest one’s eyes and grinned his fanged grin.

“...His ears!” he heard, and knew that his legacy was now safe: the village would know by that night that a hanyō had taken on the impossible quest.

It was enough, and Inuyasha picked up speed. There was no need anymore to wait. His destiny lay on Shikon Mountain, for good or for ill. As he ran, whiffs of wolf still teased his nose, and he chose to follow that scent. Soon the road narrowed to a trail and then finally thinned to a path. The Shikon forest was before him, already suffocating him with its presence.

It was a forest unlike any he had ever encountered.

Inuyasha felt most at home in a forest. The trees whispered songs to his ears, and the branches protected from yōkai who hunted him when he was cast away from his village after his mother died. Forests provided sustenance and shelter, and forests did not chase him away for being hanyō.

But this forest did not welcome him. It watched him, beckoning him in, for the purpose of ill. Oh, how he wanted to turn and run away from that place, but… he was here. And this was his destiny. If the forest killed him after just a single step, so it was to be.

Inuyasha looked down at the grass doll he now wore as a token, having strung the red string around his neck. He could smell the pure sunshine that the grass had consumed, and smiled at the little creases the girl had cut into its face, which smiled back at him. Perhaps if he succeeded in his quest, he could bring that small girl a golden persimmon to eat. _Perhaps_ , if his dreams of marrying the sleeping priestess came true, he could give that little girl the home that had been stripped away from her when her parents died.

First though, came the impossible mountain. And the sinister forest.

“Give me strength,” Inuyasha whispered to the grass token, and he took his first step into the woods.

Even without touching a single tree branch, Inuyasha felt sick, as if the air itself was attempting to suffocate him. The odd buzzing he heard about at the inn was all around him, so he sniffed the air and honed his ears. Whatever the insects were, they were concentrated to the treetops, providing a canopy of menace as he walked, a virtual wall against climbing the trees to gain his bearings. The forest floor was black and slimy, sticking to his bare feet as if it was tar meant to slow his advance and diminish his resolve.

“Uphill,” he murmured.

That was all he must remember. The peak of Shikon Mountain was always _up_ , so as long as he walked _up_ , eventually he would break the treeline of that sickly forest. So he trudged over the murky terrain and breathed the rancid air, and kept his ears tuned to the threatened buzzing that grew louder or softer based on his proximity. It was a forest designed to leech the soul out of those foolhardy enough to venture into its depths, but Inuyasha’s soul was hardier than all the others. It could endure the pressing forest because of all it had endured _outside_ the forest.

Suffocating air was nothing compared to desperately watching his mother wither away from a disease he was helpless to cure. An angry buzz that blocked out the sun had no hold on the soul of someone whose playmates threw him out of a game to survive alone. And slithering slimy footholds could not hold a candle to the whispers of abomination and the sting of rocks and fire that chased him after asking only for a bit of food.

Then, something about the air lightened, and his skin was tickled by a breeze. It called to him, leading him up and through, cleaning the air as it went. He started to jog, and then run. He wanted so desperately to go to the place where the air smelled sweet and pure: the destination of that breeze. Then, up in the distance, he saw it. Slivers of blue through the black branches of trees, and the promise of the sun. He was so close— _so close_ to it: a _clearing_.

But something was amiss. His desires were at odds with his instincts, which were screaming at him to turn away from the sweet air and the sunshine. The breeze was a trick of the wind, luring him into a trap. His instincts told him this plainly, but, too… the reward for walking into that trap was the sun on his skin and clean air in his lungs. The mountain had claimed so many, luring them in and then sending them to hell. And whatever was in that clearing was a part of the mountain’s arsenal; Inuyasha knew this. Yet, he would proceed all the same, to meet his fate, to meet his death, and to meet the challenge before him.

Inuyasha ran his claw over the doll around his neck. A token. Given to him for a bowl of rice.

“I can do this,” he said, and he broke through the trees to gaze upon the sun.

“A hanyō,” a cold feminine voice snarled, “how novel.”

She was small, wearing an ornate kimono of fuchsia and green. Her eyes glistened crimson in the clearing’s sunlight, which matched her ruby red lips. Her hair was pinned back in an ornate bun with a pair of delicate white feathers, and jade beaded earrings dangled from her pointed ears. She held nothing in her hand but a fan, with lacquered black edges and a red wave across its face, _a wave of blood_. Even from the edge of that small respite from the forest, Inuyasha could feel her yōki, coiled and ready to explode.

“I hope that you have set your affairs in order _hanyō,_ ” the yōkai woman now sneered, “because you are about to meet your end.”


	4. Fury vs. Resolve

Kagura thought back on the many foes she had faced in that lonely clearing: the great warriors cut down with a single flick of her fan, the unexpected men who gave her a challenge before she gifted them their death, and especially the demons coming to claim the prize and the wish that did nearly end her. But ultimately, all fell to her fan.

Sometimes, not often, one would sense her and avoid her little clearing, but the spider always got them too, including the wolf she had so hoped she would get to play with.

But this one, with his silver hair and his dog-like ears, looked and felt so different from the rest. He walked into her trap knowing full well that it _was_ a trap.

How long had it been since one faced her unflinchingly, with full awareness of her danger?

It had been a long time, long enough that Kagura took a pause to consider him. A _hanyō_ wearing tattered clothes with no discernible weapon, but the inferno in his eyes and the fangs he ferally bared gave her pause. As if _her_ instincts knew that despite his appearance, she had met one who was her equal.

Then, the hanyō did something unexpected: he _laughed_.

“The _name_ is _Inuyasha_ ,” the hanyō replied, and he cracked his claws and crouched down on his haunches. “And you talk too fucking much.”

Then the fight was on. Inuyasha charged toward Kagura with a guttural growl and open claws. He was fast, and precise, aiming his hand at Kagura’s throat. She was able to dodge, but only just. Kagura closed her eyes and summoned her wind to carry her into the nearest tree. When she opened them, she appraised the hanyō: one who did not run from her power or fury.

“Inuyasha…” Kagura said, her red-lipped smirk revealing her fangs, “that will be a name I shall remember. Even after you dance your last earthly dance and start dancing for me.”

Kagura flicked her fan forward, producing small, sharp, slices of air that advanced on the hanyō. Inuyasha dodged, but lost his footing and stumbled. His speed had kept him safe from most of the blades of wind, but one caught him across his cheek, gashing his face.

Inuyasha brought his finger up to the weeping wound. It stung, but did not burn, and was no more painful than other lumps and slashes he’d survived during his lonely life. But he understood that Kagura’s blade had merely grazed him. He would be cut to pieces if he let one of those attacks fall true. But the momentary distraction had been worth it. Inuyasha had seen what he was searching for: a glint of yōki that sparked between the wind demoness and her fan. Inuyasha wondered, if he knocked it from her hand, could he defeat her?

He had to try.

“You _talk too much_ ,” Inuyasha snarled, and he again charged forward, toward the tree Kagura was perched on.

“Dance of dragons!” Kagura bellowed, then she began to laugh, just as he had. “Trying the same attack twice—“

But before Kagura finished her mock, a streak of claws came down upon her arm, tearing clean holes in her kimono and nearly knocking her fan out of her hand. She jerked the fan back close to her body, setting up a pulsating barrier that caused the hanyō to howl out in pain, but could do no real damage.

“You _bastard_ ,” Kagura scowled. “You _mongrel_! I will _never_ let you win. _Half-breed!_ ”

Kagura took a deep breath to calm herself. His precision in attacking her _fan_ meant that he _knew_. Or at least that he suspected. She needed to end this in a hurry.

“Not many get to meet my dancers, _hanyō_ , but ecause I am feeling particularly generous today...” Kagura lifted her fan above her head. “Dance of the Dead!”  
  
Kagura opened her fan and waved it in a figure-eight pattern, and the moment she stopped, all around Inuyasha, the once-serene field vibrated. Pockmarks began erupting from the grass, incised by the grotesque yellow of old bone. Soon skeletal hands and arms were appearing all around him, crawling from their clearing graves, set to follow their mistress’s commands. Two, four, eight… soon sixteen, then possibly thirty corpses emerged from the ground and began lurching toward him. They completely fenced him in. There was nowhere to go but through. There was nothing to do but fight.

“Been stuck here so long the only company ya got is dead?” Inuyasha mocked, desperate to buy himself a bit more time to think; he was rewarded with a scowl so deep on the wind sorceress’s face he knew his words had succeeded.

When Inuyasha saw a particularly lumbering pair of human remains, he charged toward them, using his claws to shatter their legs so effectively that they could no longer run nor even walk, but merely crawl. Then, instead of circling around the crawling attackers to advance, Inuyasha retreated back into the circle of advancing dead, looking again for a weakness he could exploit, perhaps one that could once again ease his path to the fan in the wind sorceress’s hands.

When Kagura torqued her fan and brought an overlarge skeleton of an ogre-like human to bear down on Inuyasha, its teeth chattering and its bones clattering and becoming shards, Inuyasha jumped straight up, and brought his feet deftly onto his dead attacker’s skull, shattering the body so completely that it was rendered unable to move.

Inuyasha was learning how he could defeat her beautiful dead.

“There is no escaping this dance, _hanyō,_ so I suggest that you let it be quick.” Kagura snarled. She did not like the way he eyed her fan, and she did not like the way that he was assessing and defeating her dancers, finding the weaknesses in her snare. “ _Dance of Dragons!_ ”

With a generous swoop of her fan, Kagura poured her power into the move. A trio of deep purple vortices escaped and began recruiting the bones of her dancing skeletons. It was not something she had planned on doing, because as the tornadoes reached each skeleton, it exploded into shrapnel. Her dead dance would be over for these bodies, and she would have to wait until she was able to collect more.

“My new army will start with you, _hanyō_!” Kagura growled, aiming the tornadoes of bone daggers at the silver flash that was trying in vain to avoid her. “No one escapes this clearing alive once they have met _me!_ ”

Inuyasha could not outrun the furious knived winds that Kagura had made of her dead, and the faster he ran, the quicker the noose closed around him. What could he do? The bones could slice him to pieces, were too small, and were moving too fast for him to launch a successful counter-attack. The cyclones, too, stayed between Inuyasha and his foe, and any attempt to punch through them by force he knew would mean his immediate demise.

There _had_ to be a way to defeat her.  
If only he could get close enough to attack.  
And what he thought to do was risky; any mistake would cost his life.  
But he had no other option.

As the first of the sharpened ivory hit him, Inuyasha realized that he would have only a single chance not to meet his end. And he knew that he might, even were his plan to work to perfection, still lose his life. But that had been his decision when he set out on this quest: to succeed or to die with honor as the first hanyō to try. And nothing about this moment was going to change his fate.

Yet he wanted to live.  
Desperately.  
He wanted to live and to succeed so he could make his place in the world.  
He didn’t want to die, only to become the wind sorceress’s skeletal puppet.  
So… he would _live_.

Inuyasha collapsed to the ground, throwing his arms around his head and curling into a ball just before the first of the vortices was over him. His body screamed with pain as the bones struck true, slicing his skin, cutting his clothing, and tearing at his flesh. And all he could do was endure the tornadoes of bones set upon him with the purpose to kill. He wanted to flee as the gashes grew deeper, but he could not. His plan only worked if he remained there, giving the bone as little of his body to slice as he could manage. He knew his blood was pooling underneath him; he knew that he was howling in pain, but… he refused to die today, like he refused to die every other day of his life.

Just because the life of a hanyō is considered cursed does not also mean it is considered forfeit.

As Inuyasha began to fight unconsciousness, he heard the sound of a high cackle. He realized that the barrage of bones had lifted, replaced by the hollow _tap-tap-tap_ as the bone shards rained back down into the cursed clearing.

“Now _this_ was fun,” Kagura squealed. “You were the _first_ who challenged me properly. And for that, you will always be my favorite…”

Kagura glided over the bleeding mass of a man who had so recently caused her to fear, broken on the ground, the first she would add to her new collection.

“My first _hanyō_ too…” Kagura said, finally coming close enough to see the heavy rise and fall of her unconscious victim’s chest. “It is too bad we could not have met in better circumstances, _hanyō_ , because I think it would have been fun to continue our play…”

“My name…” The bloodstained mass gargled, shifting so minutely that Kagura did not notice, “is _Inuyasha._ ”

His clawed hand thrust forward. “ _Blades of Blood!_ ”

A razor-sharp red crescent caught Kagura’s wrist, lopping it off effortlessly, and her fan dropped to the ground. Kagura looked down at the lacquered black handles and the blood red wave on white, which was being painted red with her own blood. Then Inuyasha was to his feet, limping wildly toward her. Before she could react, he had made it, pounding his hand into the fan’s black handles, and breaking it in two.

“You… _bastard…_ ” was all Kagura was able to say before dissolving into the wind, leaving behind only her broken fan, and one of the feathers from her hair.

What Inuyasha did not know, as he crawled forward to take the feather, was that Kagura was as much a prisoner on that mountain as he was. She’d been lured there by the whispers of the jewel, and corrupted and captured by the spider. She was promised that one day, when she had defeated 100 foes, that the spider would let her climb the mountain, eat from the persimmon tree, and take her wish. And it was this promise, and the wish she desperately wanted to make (that the one she loved so dearly would love her back), that kept her in that clearing, doing her dance and waiting her turn.

Inuyasha looked at the feather in his hands, and he wondered who the wind sorceress was who had devoted her life to the mountain. But he was too weary to move, to think, to even run out of that clearing and find a safer space in that murky forest. He had never lost so much blood, and was still fighting against blacking out. All he could do at that moment was gamble that his yōki would heal his wounds before he bled out, so Inuyasha closed his eyes and let himself go limp, hoping that he would wake up again. He pawed at the thatched doll tied with red string still secure around his neck, and said a prayer just before he finally gave into unconsciousness.

From the edge of the clearing, the spider watched the hanyō crumple and finally pass out. Naraku may have lost Kagura that day, but she had defeated the hanyō before she met her demise: the hanyō, he now knew, who was named Inuyasha. The hanyō, he hoped, whose blood would finally aid him in breaking the barrier around the persimmon tree and allow him to enter the pagoda, and wish upon the jewel.

So Naraku crept into the clearing, to the listless Inuyasha, and he began spinning his silken thread, cocooning the bloodied body of his quarry.

 _Yes_ , Naraku thought, _You will make a fine meal Inuyasha. A fine meal indeed.  
_ And he carried the fallen hanyō up, up, up the mountain, where he could enjoy his meal in peace.


	5. The Spider and the Persimmon Tree

_My wonderful son. I love you more than the moon and stars. I love you more than the earth. You are perfect as you are._

The words of Inuyasha’s mother sang through his mind, as his body seethed in pain. He was alive, but only just. His mother had never let him view his being a hanyō as anything but a precious gift: someone whose very presence in the world shone light on it Someone who the world never could quite touch.

Hanyō were not built like humans, and hanyō were not built like demons. Their entire being was built to persist. A hanyō’s heart beat with the love of humans, and a hanyō’s power pulsed with the energy of yōkai. They were neither human nor yōkai; they were the best of both.

In that moment, were Inuyasha a human, he would have been long dead. And were Inuyasha a yōkai, he would have been discovered before he could formulate a plan. But being neither, and being both, Inuyasha was able to open his eyes undetected, and cut a hole in the silken cocoon his host bandaged him in, taking in all that was around him.

He was at the top of Shikon Mountain, wrapped in spiderweb, yards away from a gleaming golden tree. _The golden permission tree_.

So it wasn’t a myth.

Scurrying footfalls drew Inuyasha’s attention away from the tree and back to his predicament. He was strung in a spiderweb, whose resident currently thought him either dead or nearly so. It seemed that the silk he was wrapped in had stanched the bleeding, saving his life. Thus his captor was probably also his savior—quite the turn of fate.

Inuyasha breathed in as deeply as he dared, scenting the places around him. He could smell the organic earth of the silk; he could smell the fresh air swirling around the peak of the mountain; and he could smell the acrid scent of poisons, likely from his spider host. What he _could not smell_ though was the sweet perfume of persimmon. As if the tree before him was nothing more than an illusion. As if… _something was shielding all that emanated from the golden tree_.

Before he could ponder further, he felt the vibrations along the strings on which his cocoon was suspended, alerting him that soon, he would no longer be quite so alone with his thoughts. Inuyasha hurriedly closed the crease out of which he spied, not wanting his captor aware that he was awake.

“Perhaps _finally_ I have found the blood that can open the seal!” a menacing voice whispered barely above the wind, as if the spider had a mouth and lungs not meant for speech.

Inuyasha’s cocoon then jerked, as his host snipped the ties that held him in the web, but Inuyasha remained limp, letting the spider carry him to wherever it was best suited to enjoy the meal. Though Inuyasha had no intention of becoming a meal, and the spider’s words had confirmed his suspicion: the golden persimmon tree was being _protected_ —protected by something that the spider could not penetrate.

Something, the spider seemed to believe, it could overcome using Inuyasha’s blood.

As Inuyasha was set on rocky ground, he considered his situation. His body screamed with pain, and he knew himself to be too weak to put up the necessary fight. He needed to be clever, to choose his moment carefully. One wrong move and his quest would end in his death.

Was he destined to be the hanyō who defeated the mountain? Rather than just the first hanyō to attempt? He had never truly _considered it_ fully. Because it seemed an unattainable dream.

He was beginning to _hope_.  
That he would defeat his spider.  
That he would make it to the golden persimmon tree.  
That he would venture into the pagoda.  
And that he would free the sleeping priestess.

When the rustling grew louder, Inuyasha let his eyes open a sliver, but still kept his body limp. As a shadow passed over him, he focused on the sounds around him. The skittering came from legs padding on the ground, elevating the spider’s torso above Inuyasha’s prone form. The spider was bloated, but its yōki, while present, was weak.

Spiders were tricksters, with poison sacs capable of paralyzing and killing. They would stick their victims and then wait them out, only satisfied to enjoy their meal when they were safe. The proximity of the spider to Inuyasha told him that the spider thought itself safe.

 _I will only have one chance_ , Inuyasha confirmed. And with as few movements as he could muster, he prepared to plunge his claws into the spider’s great underbelly as it busied itself with unwrapping its doomed meal.

When Inuyasha felt all the threads drop loose to the ground, it was time. With the greatest effort he could muster, Inuyasha thrust his arm forward, making contact. The spider’s exoskeleton resisted his clawed hand for only a moment before he penetrated into the slimy insides of the beast before him.

The spider let out an unearthly howl, turning its red eyes to the prey it no longer thought dead. Before Inuyasha could pull himself up or extract his arm, a burning pain arced through his leg.

“You _wretch_!” the spider screeched, hobbling backward and extracting its stinger.

It continued to hobble away, dripping its guts through the hole that Inuyasha had gifted its belly. But its legs were convulsing and it was having trouble controlling its retreat, tumbling to the ground with every third step.

Inuyasha’s blow had struck true.  
But it had come at a terrible cost.

Whether his blow was fatal to the spider, Inuyasha did not know. But the point at which the spider’s sting had speared his leg, a tingling burning was taking over; the poison was now starting to eat him from the inside out. The spider’s blow had been fatal.

 _A hanyō is special in this world, Inuyasha. You are special. Because you love to the deepest depths of your heart. And because you fight with every fiber of your being. I love you._  
When he was near death, he could always hear her voice. When the wounds were too deep, the food too scarce, or the cold too bitter, Inuyasha heard his mother. And every time he recalled the unrelenting love she showered him with, he found a sliver more of strength, an ounce more of energy, a drop more tenacity.

Even now, as he felt the marching burn of a poison determined to kill, her voice softened the sharpness of his pain, and unleashed the reserves he did not know he had.

He may die, a victim of the spider, but the least he could do was finish the job.

“My _name is **Inuyasha**_ ,” Inuyasha shouted, and he pulled himself up, limping on his burning leg. “Not _wretch_ , not _hanyō_ , not _abomination_.” One step, two steps, three excruciating steps forward. “And I will end your time on this mountain, to make way for one worthier of this quest!”

Naraku tried to retreat, tried to heft himself up, but the half-breed’s claws had dug so deep into his body, he knew that he had but hours left. If _only_ he could wait out his prey, maybe, just _maybe_ … he could consume of the persimmons and heal.

But the wretched half-breed beast was not giving him that option. Even pumped full of Naraku’s most potent toxins, still the hanyō advanced. Even _knowing_ that he was to die, still the hanyō— _Inuyasha_ —did not relent.

“What if I make you a bargain?” Naraku muttered, his vision beginning to narrow as every movement drained him further of his life. “The antidote. To spare my life.”

The silver-haired hanyō did not pause, not even for a moment.

“I don’t make bargains with _spiders_ ,” Inuyasha rasped; his legs were getting heavier and his already broken body was crying for it to be over, but he would not stop until the spider was dead.

Naraku began shuffling toward the persimmon tree. Maybe, if he aimed his incisors just right, he could catch the hanyō on the neck, killing him and sucking his blood.

But every movement brought him closer to death, and Inuyasha showed no signs of relenting.

“P-please. I—I can tell you the _secret_ to the pagoda. To the _jewel_ ,” Naraku begged, desperate to find a lie suitable to let him have just a bit more time.

“What is your name?” Inuyasha demanded, now only two arm’s lengths away. “So I know what prayer to say to the kami when I end your reign of terror on this mountain.”

Naraku snarled. There was nothing for it. He had been defeated, and he would meet his end. But at least his poison was doing its work.

“I suppose it does not hurt to give you the name of the one who has killed you, _Inuyasha_ ,” Naraku gurgled. “Because my poison has sullied your blood, making passage to your pagoda impossible. You’ll die here, like me, but much more slowly. There is no escape from Shikon Mountain, especially for the likes of you.” Then, as Inuyasha limped forward, his claws dripping in his own blood, the spider displayed a wild grin. “My name is _Naraku._ ”

“ _Blades of blood!”_ Inuyasha roared, throwing the daggers of his poisoned blood into the spider, leaving nothing more than a discombobulated pile of exoskeleton and limbs, just before he collapsed to the ground.

Inuyasha hoped that this would be enough.  
Enough to cement his fate.  
Enough to change how they whispered about hanyōs.  
Enough, perhaps even, for the name _Inuyasha_ to be whispered on the wind.

 _Don’t give up Inuyasha._  
Was it the voice of his mother still? Didn’t she know that the poison that coursed through his veins was dissolving him from the inside out, and it was all he could do to keep conscious?

 _Inuyasha, you can do this._  
Didn’t she understand that every movement he made flared the unbearable pain? That closing his eyes and giving in was so much easier?

 _A few more yards and I will save you._  
This voice, those words, were _not_ his mother. They sang to him on a fresh breeze, one that tickled his nose with the fruity sweetness of… _persimmons_.

Inuyasha darted up, letting himself shriek from the pain it brought to his body. But his blood had been sullied by the spider. The barrier that so effectively kept _Naraku_ away from the tree surely would shut him out too. Yet, the song in the breeze was meant for him, the fragrance that it carried meant to give him hope. And all he had to do was persist for a short while longer.

So Inuyasha dragged himself forward, his legs now numb of movement but screaming with pain. One arm in front of the other, he pulled his rapidly failing body toward the tree. Each time he lumbered forward, the breeze rustled his hair, fresher and more fragrant than before.

Could this also be a trap?  
It mattered not, because Inuyasha was destined to die without the golden persimmons, and no trap could be set for him with a fate worse than the slow decaying of his poisoned body.

“Just. one. _more._ ” Inuyasha gritted his teeth and dug in his claws, scraping the earth and pulling himself the very last arm’s length forward.

The unearthly glow of the golden tree now bathed him in its light. And where he was certain he would feel resistance, he felt… _warmth_. As if the tree had called out for him, and now welcomed him into its midst.

“What the—” Inuyasha looked down, and saw that the grass doll he wore as his token was glowing the same gold as the tree.

Inuyasha did not know that the barrier the priestess erected all those centuries ago looked into the _heart_ of those who bathed in its light, to find one who was pure. And for the first time in those centuries, the barrier let someone in. All because of a doll, and a bowl of rice.

One might assume something as resplendent as a golden tree with fruit known to cure all ailments would be grand and tall, with shimmering bark and lush leaves; its fruit plentiful and succulent. But those tales are always told by those who have never come across such a tree, as Inuyasha now had.

The golden persimmon tree was small and bare, with spindly leaves and branches reaching desperately toward the sunlight. And instead of dozens of fruits spanning all the branches, the persimmon tree had five, and not a single one was within Inuyasha’s broken grasp.

 _Eat what you need. These are meant for you._  
The voice sang in his mind again, and the smallest persimmon dropped, rolling gingerly into his reach.

“Thank you,” Inuyasha whispered, and with the last of his strength, he reached out and he grabbed the persimmon, engulfing it in a single bite.

The change that overcame him was immediate. The howling burn of the poison receded, replaced with a dull ache. And when he tried, he found he could wiggle his toes again. Inuyasha roped his arms around the trunk of the tree and found, while wobbly, he once again had use of his body.

But the wounds left by the sorceress’s army of bones still criss-crossed his body, and while blood no longer gushed, it still oozed.

“I hope you weren’t lyin’ about taking all I need,” Inuyasha whispered to the voice on the breeze, then reached up and plucked a second golden persimmon from the tree, consuming his second fruit in a single bite.

This time, his body felt bathed in warmth, emanating in his gut and streaming outward. As he watched, his blood stopped dripping from the gashes, which receded into cuts, until they were no more than a memory: all from nothing more than consuming two fruits from this golden tree.

“One more, right?” Inuyasha asked the breeze, as he stretched his muscles and cracked his claws. “One more to see the pagoda?”

When there was no answering song, Inuyasha picked one more persimmon, but this one he ate with care, savoring its gentle sweetness on his tongue. It was the most delicious fruit he had ever tasted, leaving him feeling euphoric and refilling his spent energy reserves.

As he swallowed down his last bite, a shimmering pathway appeared, and now, as he gazed upon the highest peak of Shikon Mountain, he _saw it_. Its sloping roofs gleamed bright red against the blue sky, its outer walls were white with pink accents, as if it had been dusted by sakura blossoms in the spring. _The pagoda that housed the sleeping princess_.

It was time for him to face the choice: to collect the rest of the persimmons and retreat to safety, guaranteed to be a richer man, or venture forward into the pagoda, set to free the maiden from her slumber and wish upon the jewel in her hands.

But for Inuyasha, there was no choice. He would complete the quest or he would die on that mountain. And the quest did not end at the persimmon tree.

“I go forward,” he said, and he took his first step toward the pathway.

Just before he left the golden light of the tree, Inuyasha stopped, and looked back, counting the two persimmons still hanging from its branches.

 _Eat what you need. They are meant for you_.

Inuyasha plucked one of the two persimmons still clinging to the branches, and stuffed it into his sleeve. He trusted the song in the breeze, but he did not take the road ahead for granted. Because, in the words of that ragamuffin girl: _remember, when you are atop the mountain, that nothing is without a price._


	6. The Only Right Wish

Inuyasha still remembered the day he heard of the quest of Shikon Mountain. He was dozing in the branches of a great oak tree, safe from prying eyes, when the voices of two travelers jarred him awake.

_Word is there is a sleeping princess up that mountain, and she can be freed with a kiss!  
I wouldn’t mind kissing a princess—I bet she is real pretty…_

Inuyasha followed the travelers from the canopy, hopping from branch to branch as they talked, until the forest thinned to the occasional tree and he could follow no more without being seen. But still he listened until their voices faded from his ears. Of the mountain with the forest that swallowed unwary travelers alive, of the jagged peaks that scraped the sky, of the maiden and the golden persimmons, and finally, of the jewel.

All it had taken was a few minutes of travelers' tales for Inuyasha to decide his destiny.

And now, here he was, climbing the steps carved out of the unforgiving granite, toward the pagoda of Shikon Mountain. He had traversed the black forest, he had beaten the wind sorceress, and he had defeated the spider. Then, he had eaten the golden persimmons and chosen to continue forward on the path. Because Inuyasha would rather die with honor trying to save the sleeping priestess than live with the ignominy of knowing he had a chance to save her and had walked away.

“If you can still hear me, I’m comin’,” Inuyasha called up toward the pagoda, thinking of the voice, so like his mother’s, that sang to him in the persimmon-scented breeze.

Was it her? He hoped it was her. Because he was already sure that he would remember the voice on the wind for the rest of his life.

With every step closer to the pagoda he climbed, the more he wanted to stop and turn away. Something was ominous about the air, no longer as pure as it was by the barrier that protected the persimmon tree.

What could possibly be bringing such menace to the wind? The pagoda’s roofs were painted with the bright crimson of fate and its walls the blush of sakura blossoms. The rectangular structure was cut directly into the mountain peak on which it stood, with four tiered roofs: a portent of death. _Fitting,_ he thought.

As he finally wound up the passage toward the four-roofed building, Inuyasha wondered how long the pagoda had been sealed away. How long the maiden had slept. And how lonely it must have been to have but a spider for company. He wondered if she could whisper on the persimmon breeze to everyone who made it that far, asking them to come to her, to rescue her.

Perhaps… he was the first.  
Perhaps… he was the _only_.

It quickened Inuyasha’s steps. The legend of Shikon Mountain went farther back than his long life, so whomever the sleeping priestess was, she had been trapped at least centuries in that place, alone. He _was_ coming for her. To wake her from her eternal slumber. He was so close, _so close_ now. But the turbulent air around the pagoda told him that the quest was not complete: that there may still be a foe that lay ahead.

When he faced the bright red door that would bring him inside the pagoda, Inuyasha paused. He grasped the grass doll tied with the red string in his hand, and he thought back to the hungry orphan who’d traded it for a bowl of rice.

“Nothing is without a price,” he whispered, then opened the door.

The interior of the pagoda was… _austere_. As if its purpose was never to be the mountaintop castle that was whispered about, but rather, no more than a shrine. Inuyasha looked around the simple room, noting the way the light seemed to struggle to make it through the windows. But his eyes were drawn inextricably to the back. There was a pink glow to the gloomy room, and atop a large stone platform was the prone figure of a woman: the sleeping priestess.

Inuyasha wanted to run to her, to call out to her that he was there, that he would _save her_ , but no. Instead he stepped carefully forward, testing his every footfall for a trap. When he successfully made it across the room, he leaned over to gaze at her. And at the vision that he saw, Inuyasha’s breath stopped.

She had long flowing onyx hair that glistened in the low light; it looked like a starlit river. Her face was smooth and serene, as if it was made from porcelain, with blushing full lips and long lush eyelashes, that cradled her slumbering eyes. She wore a Heian kimono (which was from 200 years in the past) of white, green and red silk, ageless and still soft to the touch. Her delicate hands held the glowing pink jewel by their fingertips, as if she were saying a prayer in the final moments before she succumbed. _Beautiful_.

Inuyasha grazed her cheek with his fingertips. She was warm, and she was soft, and it was all Inuyasha could do not to lean in and gift the sleeping woman a kiss, for in a single glance he knew that he was enraptured. He was _hers_.

“Welcome, _Inuyasha_.” A voice behind him caused him to jump. He had been so careful! How could someone have snuck up on him so easily?

But when he turned to face them, it was _not_ a person, but a _spectre_. She stood tall, and had the face of the sleeping maiden. But it was shimmering unnaturally, and every flaw that made the priestess beautiful had been erased. Her hair and bangs were pin-straight, and her eyes held a cold cruelty that Inuyasha could not imagine the real woman could possibly create.

“Who _are_ you?” Inuyasha growled, instinctively placing his body between the spectre and the sleeping maid.

“I am the one who can give you anything you desire.” The spectre answered simply, her face as still as death, but lacking the serenity of the woman on the platform. “Simply utter your wish, and I can make it so. You’ve _succeeded_ in your quest, _Inuyasha_ … It is time to claim your reward.”  
  
Inuyasha looked at the unnaturally perfect form in front of him, then turned his gaze (only for a moment) back to the slumbering woman.

“Do you wish to awaken her?” asked the spectre. “Simply say the words, and I can make it so.”

Inuyasha nearly spoke, nearly wished. But he held his tongue.  
 _Nothing is without a price_.  
What was the price for his wish?  
Yet… if he were not meant to wish her awake, then _how_?

“Maybe you want more, _Inuyasha_ ,” the un-woman purred. “Because I can give you anything you want.”

Inuyasha stayed silent. It was so tempting; plus, every rumor that crossed his ears about the maiden and the mountain made mention of the wish. But as he pawed at the grass doll around his neck, as he looked down at the real priestess, it did not add up. And every time he tried to speak up and find the wish he desperately wanted, something stopped his voice.

“You have completed this quest, Inuyasha! The wish is your reward!” The spectre’s cold eyes began to widen. “I can make you powerful, admired, adored. I can grant you _the love of the sleeping priestess_. You need only ask. Only say the word.”

Suddenly the dark room faded away and was replaced with a bright light so overpowering that Inuyasha flinched. Then he saw it: himself, adorned in fineries, masses of peasants bowing before him and kissing his hand. Then, another flash: _her_. Lying naked and adoring underneath him—moaning his name: _Inuyasha, Inuyasha._ But… her voice was not the song on the persimmon breeze, and her hair was not the unkempt hair of the one on the platform. Then, one final flash. He was holding her, swelled with his child, greeting the pupils of their palace: every face as reverential as the last, every person _accepting and submitting to a hanyō_.

“No,” Inuyasha snarled, and he shook the temptations away. “No.”

He understood now, what the un-woman was.  
He understood the last piece of his quest.  
He understood the ragamuffin’s warning: that nothing was without a price.

“Then what is it you wish?” asked the spectre, which he now knew was the jewel itself.

Inuyasha turned away.

“To wish for this woman’s love is to make it false,” Inuyasha said, running his clawed hand along the jawbone of the _real_ version of the priestess he knew now he was born for. “I don’t want it. Nor the ill-gotten jewels or adoration either. Yes, I am hanyō, and yes that has meant a life of pain and loneliness. But I will _not_ seek that which is not freely given.” Then Inuyasha turned toward the jewel’s projection, which was now wild-eyed with worry. “I have no need for wishes. Because I want everything that comes to me to be real and earned. And _you_ cannot give me that.”

If the jewel had only offered the wish to wake the sleeping priestess, if it had projected an image not of perfection, but of the _real_ woman, then perhaps the tale would have ended far differently. But the jewel was greedy, grasping, and desperate. And in its attempt to overplay its hand, it underestimated Inuyasha’s purity. Because, with Inuyasha’s declaration that he had no need of a wish, he had made the _only wish_ that was able to defeat the jewel, which vanished from existence in an unremarkable pop.

The spectre was gone and so was the glow, but the priestess still laid asleep.

“W—wait,” Inuyasha cried.

Inuyasha trembled as he leaned in, pawing at the slumbering maiden, listening to her slow and steady breaths.

What had he done? Had he really wished away the only item that could undo the curse that held her hostage in sleep?

“P—please wake up,” he begged, for he would not leave her side until he had completed his task, even at the cost of his own life.

 _Eat what you need. They were meant for you.  
_ She’d called to him, sung to him on the breeze. The _persimmon_ breeze.

Inuyasha pawed at his sleeve, and found the round and supple fruit still nestled there.

Would it be enough? Should he have taken the other fruit too from the tree?

“If it isn’t, I’ll go get the other one,” Inuyasha said, and he raised the fruit above her kissable lips and squeezed, allowing the fruit to relinquish one—two—three droplets of juice directly into her mouth. “Please… please…”

He wanted to see the color of her eyes. Wanted to know what her face looked like when it curled into a smile. He wanted to hear whether she was the one who sang to him to keep going, and why she was sealed away for so long waiting for someone.

He wanted to know…  
To know if she could love him, a _hanyō_.

Then he heard it. The slightest of gasps, and a stutter to her heartbeat.  
Then he saw it. A flinch to her face and a flutter to her eyelashes.  
The sleeping priestess, Kagome Higurashi, was waking up.

In those centuries of her sleep, only three had ever made it to top. The spider was the first, tainted so profoundly by the whispers of the jewel that it took up residence and sullied the entirety of Shikon Mountain. His insects blocked the canopy and his webs and schemes led all who tried to make it to the pagoda to their deaths. The second was a wind sorceress, whose power broke the spider’s webs and blasted through the forest. But the jewel too saw into her broken heart and made her promises, that she could work with the spider and be granted her wish once the _right_ sacrifice was found. And both the spider and the sorceress were so sullied that Kagome’s barrier held firm against them, keeping them at bay, keeping them _waiting_.

Inuyasha was the third. The only hanyō in the two-hundred year long wait to have attempted the quest. He had the power of the demons to take on the sorceress and the spider, and the pure heart of a human, which could love deeply and selflessly: able to trade a bowl of rice for a doll, and able to deny the jewel its sullying wish.

He listened to the song she sang for him, and pushed himself to survive. For _her_. To rescue _her_.  
  
So as Kagome felt the persimmon juice kiss her lips and grant life back into her cursed limbs, she wanted nothing more than to see the one who saved her with her own eyes. And when she finally opened them, she gazed upon her hanyō for the very first time. He had sunlit golden eyes and moonspun silver hair, and the ears that sat atop his head, covered in soft downy fur, were focused solely on her. _Beautiful_.

She did not think herself capable of _not_ loving such a man. Whose yōki defeated might, whose heart defeated trickery, and finally, whose persistence brought him to her.

“I—Inu—yasha?” Kagome tried her voice for the first time in two hundred years.

“Th—that’s my _name_ ,” Inuyasha rasped, and the smile that adorned his lips was able to light the gloomy room, and had already set her heart aflame.

“You… you heard my call,” Kagome whispered, finding the effort of speech more than she’d planned. “And you _came_.”

As Kagome tried to sit up, she faltered. Inuyasha’s arms came around her immediately, steadying her, then pulling her to him, as if he could not resist bringing her closer once he’d held her.

“Keh,” Inuyasha said, pushing his body away, suddenly shy. “Was… was nothin’.”

“Thank you for rescuing me,” Kagome said, leaning her face gently toward his, letting her fingers brush his jawline, waiting to see if he would accept the closeness she offered, “My name is… Kagome.”

When Inuyasha leaned into her touch, she knew. Her hanyō, her _savior_ , was as much hers as she was his. So Kagome closed the final distance between them, pressing her lips to Inuyasha’s lips. And while Inuyasha started at the sudden affectionate contact, he did not resist. Soon he let himself sink into the feel of her, the scent of her, the _song_ of her.

“Kagome,” Inuyasha said, struggling to break their kiss even for the moments it took to say her name. “Thank you for… for singin’ to me.”

Because, once Inuyasha heard her voice, he knew that she _was_ the song in the persimmon breeze. And she was the song he hoped he would get to listen to every day for the rest of his life.

And so, the reign of the tainted jewel of Shikon Mountain was ended. Inuyasha and Kagome plucked the last persimmon from the golden tree, then flew on Kagura’s feather back down the mountain, to secure their place in the tales told at the inns across the base of the mountain.

* * *

Stories are still told of the hanyō who outwitted the jewel and rescued the great priestess, but instead of an end decorated with jewels and lordships and adoration, it is an end with a little family whose small plot of land contains a golden persimmon tree. On rare occasions, they will sell a single fruit at market for a golden ingot.

The onyx-haired priestess, who is ripe with her hanyō husband’s child, adores working in their vegetable garden, often accompanied by their adopted daughter Rin, who still enjoys trading little grass dolls for bowls of rice at the village’s inn. Though now, in her new home, she will never go hungry again.

And Inuyasha has found, with their house and their persimmons and their _family_ , that he, a hanyō, has everything in the world that he could ever truly wish for.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like my works, I have an Inuyasha Master Fic List on [Tumblr](https://neutronstarchild.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> And what if you want to read more fairy tales?  
>  Check out Fawn_Eyed_Girl's incredible fairy tale [Under the Sakura Tree](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28435737/chapters/69681234), for an adventure where _**Kagome**_ must save _**Inuyasha!**_
> 
> And as always, Alannada is the queen of fairy tales, but my favorite from her right now is [The Fae Tree.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24217675/chapters/58342849)
> 
> I also have an InuKag fairy tale one-shot called [The Half-demon Prince and the Curse of Four Paws](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27700634) that... well a witch curses Inuyasha!


End file.
